


We're yet to bleed

by Naladot



Category: GOT7, Miss A
Genre: Corruption, Dark, Developing Relationship, F/M, Future Fic, M/M, Murder, Murder Mystery, Past Relationship(s), Unrequited Love, Unresolved Romantic Tension, industry meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-30
Updated: 2016-05-30
Packaged: 2018-07-11 04:10:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7028014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naladot/pseuds/Naladot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jinyoung has a hangover when he returns to Seoul in 2024 for JYP's 30th Anniversary special. Two weeks prior to his arrival, Suzy was taken into custody as a suspect in her husband's murder investigation. Amid the media noise about Suzy, Jinyoung reunites with Jaebum, after giving each other the silent treatment for the past five years. Nothing is what it seems, and Jinyoung really only wants a happy ending.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We're yet to bleed

**Author's Note:**

> This whole fic was a bizarre idea I had when I was wishing Olymfics had run this year, because I wanted to try out writing future fic with something really unusual. Nothing here is meant to be real, an actual prediction of the future, a statement on what I think these celebrities are "really like," or anything of the sort. A lot of it is meant to be a dark kind of humor. It's fiction.
> 
> Title from "Hearts Like Ours" by The Naked and Famous
> 
> Edited 03/12/2018 for clarity and pacing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_I’ll put your poison in my veins  
They say the best love is insane_

—”What You Wanted,” OneRepublic

 

 

I. one-way returns

 

 **The Suspect:  
** How an International Cinema Darling Wound Up in the Center of Her Husband’s Murder Investigation  
by Hwari Kim  
Vale Magazine  
September 20, 2024

 _Though nearly every minute of her life is captured on camera, no cameras recorded Suzy Bae’s arrest in the middle of the night on July 29, 2024, nor her subsequent departure to an unknown police facility somewhere in Seoul. In fact, the event was conducted so quietly, no one even knew that South Korea’s most internationally successful film actress was a suspect in the investigation of the murder of her husband, investment banker Jungsik Choi, until the Seoul police department released a short statement the following day. Immediately, world media flew into a frenzy, analyzing Suzy’s last appearance—a screening of her new film_ This Side of Nowhere _in Berlin—in minute detail. But there was little to be found in that two-hour appearance to suggest trouble in her marriage, much less that Choi had been missing for nearly two months. Rumors began to swirl in the vacuum of information that surrounded her arrest two weeks after her Berlin appearance._

_As the police remained tight-lipped, refusing even to release details of Choi’s murder, those rumors became their own international currency. At the Shanghai Film Festival, reporters dogged James Preston Kim, acclaimed director and long-time collaborator of Suzy’s. Kim insisted he had no details to share, but gossip magazines soon printed claims that he and Suzy had been carrying on an affair for several years. Those magazines face a multi-million dollar lawsuit, which they are sure to lose. The curious public, both inside and outside of the entertainment industry, then turned their eyes to Suzy’s Hollywood connections to look for what could have been a motive for murder—but the truth lay closer to home. Suzy’s roots are in the South Korean pop entertainment industry, a hugely lucrative export that made her a household name in East and Southeast Asia. As with entertainment industries around the globe, the world of Korean entertainment bears a shiny exterior, underneath which swirls a typhoon of intrigue, fueled by greed and lust. And it was in that industry that the details of Suzy’s fame and her conflict-ridden marriage lay buried._

 

 

 

 

 

x

 

 

“Success can’t be measured in terms of money or prestige. In the end, all of that goes away.  
After all, we all die eventually.”  
_—Jinyoung Park, in his last Got7 interview, July 29, 2019_

“Are you drunk?”  
_—Jackson Wang, in response_

 

x

 

 

Jinyoung is hung over when his flight lands at the Incheon Airport in the early morning of August 18, 2024. The sun hasn’t risen yet and so the dark land below him is awash with glittering lights, giving the odd impression that he is descending into stars, or perhaps the roaring crowd of a stadium holding up lightsticks emblazoned with the name _Got7_. They never did get an official group color, Jinyoung realizes as the wheels of the plane hit the tarmac. Someone really dropped the ball there.

Then again, JYP Entertainment was chasing after the ball more often than they were in control of it, so that wasn’t really out of the ordinary.

Wonpil, the only person he’d been willing to call to pick him up at this hour, waits for him out in the terminal, wearing a jacket and a cap in the odd, hunched-over way of someone who is still famous. Jinyoung tries to walk with his shoulders straight, even as a headache pounds against his eyes.

“You look terrible,” Wonpil says.

Jinyoung decides against saying the same in return. “How else am I supposed to get through a JYP 30th Anniversary reunion extravaganza, if not drunk?”

Wonpil considers him for a moment, and in his steady gaze Jinyoung sees a wealth of memories. They used to all stay up in the dorms until the early morning during their trainee days, playing video games and pranking each other. Wonpil had congratulated him on JJ Project’s debut, he remembers, by treating him to dinner. Neither of them had spoken the whole time. It was hard not to be jealous, when you were young.

“I’m surprised you came,” Wonpil says.

Jinyoung shrugs and smiles in a way that feels all too familiar. Camera-ready. “I’m Park Jinyoung,” he says. “I have an inheritance to collect.”

 

 

Three years ago Jinyoung boarded a plane out of Incheon and landed in Kansas City, Kansas, United States of America. Amidst the miles and miles of flat prairie land and all-American sky, Jinyoung was insignificant. Which was, after all, why he had gone.

That same year, Im Jaebum finished his military duty and returned to JYP Entertainment to embark on a solo debut. Whether this was long-planned or a sudden burst of inspiration was hard to say, but after all, Jinyoung was nowhere to be found, Jackson Wang was on eight television shows in mainland China, Bambam was being followed by swarming fans throughout Thailand, Mark was supposedly “working on music,” Youngjae was still in the military, and Yugyeom was smiling for pictures at his shotgun wedding. A solo for Jaebum was needed to keep the Got7 brand afloat, at least until someone could locate a life raft.

In an odd twist of fate bestowed on Psy’s “Gangnam Style,” and Wonder Girls’ “Nobody” before him, Im Jaebum’s single “Stoploss” was an oddly magical ear worm that traveled rapidly across international borders.

In Kansas City, Jinyoung flipped on his television and watched Jaebum’s winsome smile and masculine coldness befuddle the country as he filled up the screen of _The Ellen Show._

At that point, Jinyoung and Jaebum had not spoken for two years.

 

 

As Wonpil’s car pulls onto the highway out of Incheon, a radio DJ—Super Junior’s Leeteuk, Jinyoung realizes, still working after all these years—changes tone and says _there have been no further updates from the police department on Bae Suji—_

Jinyoung turns off the radio.

 

 

 

 

 

x

 

COMMODIFICATION OF BODIES IN THE CONTEXT OF KPOP

A THESIS FOR THE COMPLETION OF THE DEGREE MASTER OF ARTS

BY

JINYOUNG PARK

MAY, 2024

_…The bodies of Kpop artists become the locations of the contemporary fetish, a metonymy for that which is desired but cannot be understood or named. As a result of Kpop’s international appeal, the glamorized and decontextualized Asian bodies of Kpop stars become commodified for the world market, signifying whatever a given international audience believes them to be. These commodifying gazes form concentric circles around any given Kpop artist: most influential are those audiences closest to home geographically, with compounding weight as the audience exists in spaces physically farther away. However, the rise of the internet is both the mode of creation for Kpop as well as part of its decontextualization: Kpop artists have little to no geographic or national meaning represented in their selves because the computer screen transmits their image to the homes of viewers worldwide. Thus their popularity becomes their curse. Their primary significance lies not in their physical, geographically and nationally located bodies, but in the image of their bodies as perpetuated across millions of screens…_

 

x

 

“I often felt lost. I rarely felt like a person. I had very few friends, and I didn’t really know how to be a friend, either, because everyone I knew looked at me and saw how much money I could make them, or how much more I was making than them. But when I met Jungsik, I felt like someone finally saw me—like I could be a person, instead of the idol I’d been for so many years.”  
_—Suzy Bae, Vogue Magazine (US edition), October 2022_

 

x

 

 

TRANSCRIPT: IM JAEBUM, AUGUST 20, 2024  
FOR “The Suspect”

_Im Jaebum: Got7 split up because it was the right time. What does the hell do you think that has to do with Suzy?_

_Interviewer: A lot of things seem to be interconnected._

_Im Jaebum: All you fucking reporters—it’s not connected. Got7 split up because most of us had military duty, Jackson and Bambam had a ton of overseas opportunities, Yugyeom—well, there was that—and it was just time._

_Interviewer: The fans I’ve interviewed said that they thought you and Park Jinyoung had a fight._

_Im Jaebum: We didn’t._

_Interviewer: But he left the country after his military duty._

_Im Jaebum: I’m not responsible for him._

 

 

 

 

x

 

JYP’s 30th anniversary is something like a family reunion. Everyone is required to show up. No exceptions, no questions. Jinyoung had considered bowing out for about two seconds before he bought his plane ticket to Seoul, thesis be damned. JYP has left a legacy, and after all, he’s Korean. Hierarchical obligations are written in his blood.

The night Jinyoung arrives, the company holds a private dinner. It’s a big room with a lot of people, old idols and staff and their families. JYP sits at the table up front with his favorites—no one ever questioned that he had favorites. Jo Kwon and Sunye and Wooyoung and Minjun, Jihyo, Natty, Jackson, Yeeun, and even Ahn Sohee, whom Jinyoung hasn’t seen in years except on screen. Jaebum takes his seat at that main table just as Jinyoung walks into the room. There’s an empty seat next to him, where Suzy would have been. Jinyoung looks at the empty space beside Jaebum for a long moment before he forces himself to look away.

“This is fun,” Jinyoung murmurs as he takes a seat between Sungjin and Wonpil at a table in the corner, hoping Jackson doesn’t turn around and notice him and scream out his name. “Just like old times.”

“Aren’t you supposed to sit with your group?” Sungjin asks, not unkindly. Sungjin doesn’t have an unkind bone in his body, though he looks vaguely tired. Jinyoung feels tired, and he doesn’t think it’s the jetlag.

“I don’t have a group,” Jinyoung points out. He can tell that Jaebum has spotted him now, a weird sense of intuition he chalks up to an ill-fated debut known as JJ Project and the impact of too many years where the two of them stood on opposite sides of a see-saw, precariously balanced, daring the other to make the wrong move.

Jackson yells out his name and starts running toward him, thirty years old and still a boy. Jinyoung pastes a smile on his face.

 

 

“It’s been like, fifteen years since you two stopped talking,” Jackson says later, as he and Jinyoung and Mark sit on the balcony of an overpriced hotel, looking out at Seoul spread below them.

“Five,” Jinyoung points out. He polishes off the alcohol in his glass and holds out a hand for more. Mark indulges him, but with a slightly concerned look. At thirty-one Mark still looks oddly youthful, making his judgment easy to ignore.

“You’re going to have to work together, you know,” Jackson continues. “Can’t you just kiss and make up and move on?”

Jinyoung looks sideways at Mark and smiles. “Jackson,” he says slowly, “Are you still upset that Jaebum never did let you kiss him? It’s been like, fifteen years.”

“Shut up, Jinyoung,” Jackson says as Mark laughs. “I was drunk, for one, and two, it would have been good for him. He had a stick up his ass back then.”

“And now?” Jinyoung asks carefully, pretending like he isn’t really interested. It’s been so long since he sat in a hotel like this, with Mark and Jackson, talking about inter-group dynamics. Pretending they always got along.

Jackson sighs and shakes his head. “I don’t even know him anymore.”

“Who’s fault is that?” Jinyoung teases.

But maybe after all this time Jackson can still read between the lines. “It’s no one’s fault,” Jackson says. “Except maybe all of ours.”

 

 

It has not been five years since Jinyoung and Jaebum last spoke.

Actually, it’s only been a little over two months.

Nevertheless, Jinyoung isn’t keen on playing nice when he walks into the practice room the next morning, a chill running down his spine. He looks around at this room that is all too familiar, like a trap or a hallucination, and suddenly it feels as if he’s still twenty-two years old with a chaotic schedule and a hard-nosed determination to “be somebody important.”

Jaebum catches Jinyoung’s eye when he walks into the room. Nods once, then looks away. In the meantime Bambam launches himself at Jinyoung with an ear-splitting shriek, so Jinyoung gets away with pretending he didn’t see.

 

 

Two years ago, Jaebum pounded on the door of Jinyoung’s Kansas City townhouse in the middle of the night.

“Is this a drama?” Jinyoung asked when he opened the door and found Jaebum standing there, drenched from the pouring rain, a suitcase at his side. Last time he saw Jaebum it was on his television screen, singing on _The Tonight Show._ Now he was at his front door.

“I hate my life,” Jaebum said. “And since you hate me, I figured we should see each other.”

In spite of his practiced and perfected cynicism, Jinyoung was at heart a romantic. He let him inside.

 

 

They will perform two numbers for the televised anniversary concert: a compilation of their biggest hits, and an old JYP track. Jinyoung hasn’t danced in so long, his joints feel like they’ve rusted over. Somehow he’s gone from one of the best among them, to dead weight, and he can feel them all watching him, wondering how they can pull this off in the next three days.

“I’ll stay late,” Jinyoung says, waving his hand as the rest pack up to go. The others make jokes and call out “hwaiting!” but Jaebum doesn’t move from the far side of the room, his arms folded over his chest and his face a blank slate.

“I’ll help Jinyoung,” he announces when Yugyeom and Youngjae stop to wait for him. Jinyoung can feel the rest of them watching, wary, but he keeps his eyes locked on Jaebum, his lips twisting into a smile.

“Do you want us to stay too?” Yugyeom asks innocently. Jaebum just shakes his head, ever the leader.

“We’ll be fine.”

The others obediently file out of the room. Standing there staring at each other, it’s like they’re eighteen again, locked in a competition with no recourse. Jaebum crosses the room and stands behind Jinyoung, pulling back on his shoulders and kicking at his heel until he’s satisfied with Jinyoung’s form. Jinyoung is pliable, does not resist. He keeps his gaze on the mirror until Jaebum looks up.

“Her parents went to the police station last night,” Jaebum says in a low voice. The room is hot and stuffy, a fan in the corner uselessly blowing around the warm air. But it’s noisy, so they won’t be overheard. “They couldn’t get in. They even tried to bribe their way in, but nothing worked.”

“How much did they have?”

“I gave them the money.” Jaebum’s hand is too tight on Jinyoung’s shoulder. In the mirror, Jinyoung can make out a clenched muscle in his jaw. “Anyway, I thought you should know.”

“Do you want me to do something about it?” Jinyoung stares hard at Jaebum in the mirror. He looks up again and his dark eyes hold steady.

“She has the best lawyers in the country. International sympathy. What could you do, except make things worse?”

“Then why are you telling me?”

Jaebum’s grip suddenly releases and Jinyoung teeters forward, unanchored.

“I thought you’d want to know.”

 

 

II. way stations

 

 

 

 

  
**Kpop on the International Stage**

_…In the scheme of Kpop celebrities, few careers are more significant than that of Bae Suji, known internationally as Suzy Bae. Though she began as the demure darling of a Kpop girl group and proceeded to become one of the most famous celebrities in Asia through a combination of television and film roles as well as endorsements in South Korea and abroad, it was her role in James Preston Kim’s_ Lingua Hanja _that shot her to fame internationally._ Lingua Hanja, _Kim’s dark probing of the role of China in the modern world with a backdrop of colonial and postcolonial international politics, featured Bae as one of its leads. The film was awarded Best Screenplay at the Cannes Film Festival, and won both an Oscar and a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film. Bae next appeared in Kim’s less awarded but internationally more lucrative film_ Spoken. _By this point, Bae Suji’s presence on the international stage was unquestioned. Her marriage to South Korean investment banker Choi Jungsik further tipped the scales in her favor…_

 

x

 

“Becoming successful internationally made me reflect on my debut. It wasn’t that long ago that I was filming my first music video, you know. Sometimes I miss that. I miss having a friend beside me.”  
_—Im Jaebum, NYLON Korea, June 2022_

 

x

 

TRANSCRIPT: LEE MINYOUNG, AUGUST 19, 2024  
FOR “The Suspect”

_Lee Minyoung: No, I don’t think Suzy did it. Suzy—isn’t capable of that._

_Interviewer: When I talked with you yesterday, you said Suzy ‘single-handedly murdered’ your career._

_Lee Minyoung: You interviewed me while I was drunk?_

_Interviewer: You signed the consent form._

_Lee Minyoung: Clever. Well, aside from the fact that I was drunk, murdering a career is not the same thing as murdering a person._

_Interviewer: But they both require motive._

_Lee Minyoung: You could say that._

 

 

 

 

x

 

 

The day before JYP’s 30th Anniversary Special Concert is due to broadcast, the Seoul Police Department finally releases more details about Suzy’s arrest. This might seem like a coincidence, but there are few coincidences in media. And what’s more entertaining than an internationally acclaimed actress being suspected of murder?

Jinyoung reads the article over his morning coffee. _She is a suspect, but we have several suspects. We are following due process of the law. She is being questioned, not sentenced._

“How could this happen?” Bambam asks on the ride to the studio. They sit in the back of a van. Just like old times. Bambam’s voice drops to a whisper. “And—do you think she—”

“No,” Jinyoung cuts him off. He glances up and finds Bambam looking at him with something like pity in his eyes. Jinyoung immediately smoothes his face into a sad smile. “It’s Suzy. _Suzy._ We’ve known her for so long. You know she could never do something like that.”

Bambam’s mouth hangs open just a little, and then he shrugs.

“People change,” Bambam says.

 

 

Trainee life placed dozens of teenagers, specifically chosen for their perfect combination of attractiveness and charisma, in close proximity for a stressful number of hormonally-charged years. It should surprise no one that the bulk of trainees had their first sexual experiences within the walls of their company—for better or worse. Not everyone had the luxury of choice.

At JYP Entertainment, many trainee lessons were conducted in co-ed classes, which provided a terribly large amount of time for curious, lingering gazes and high-pitched giggles.

Jinyoung’s first significant sexual encounter happened in an empty back room of the building where he had dance lessons, with Suzy, as they were making out in the sloppy and over-eager style of teenagers who were all too determined to impress everyone they met. She pushed his hand up under her skirt and, with slick fingers, he fell in love for the first time.

The way she deftly unzipped his pants told him it wasn’t her first time.

But even young, idealistic Jinyoung never cared much about coming in first. Life was a long race, a test of endurance. The skill was in being the last one on stage. The last one still running when everyone else had given up.

 

 

Suzy got married in September of 2021. Jinyoung was in Kansas City, busy with his graduate studies, and could not manage to make it back to Korea for the wedding.

Jaebum went. He tweeted a picture. _Congratulations to the beautiful bride._

 

 

Reporters are standing outside when Jinyoung leaves the studio after rehearsals late that evening. Camera flashes immediately blind him. Suddenly he wishes he were back in the flat plains of Kansas, worrying about tornadoes instead of media firestorms.

“Do you have any comments on Bae Suzy?” a reporter asks him, too close for his comfort. She has an oddly familiar face. Jinyoung stops walking, startled, but he can’t place it. He just knows he’s seen her before.

“No, I have nothing,” Jinyoung says. “I haven’t seen Suzy in years.”

It’s good enough to count as a comment, apparently, because the reporter writes it down. Someone pushes Jinyoung forward. He knows instinctively that it’s Jaebum’s palm against his back.

 

 

 

The fight that caused Jaebum and Jinyoung to stop talking for three years began with an argument over stage blocking, and ended up somewhere else entirely.

“Oh, sure, act like this is all my fault!” Jinyoung yelled, while the other five withdrew to the back of the room, out of the line of fire. “You’re always trying to push your shit back on me, playing the hero and making me the bad guy—”

“You’re the one who’s being childish!” Jaebum spat. “It’s a _solo debut,_ not the end of Got7—”

“Oh, but doesn’t it start here, _hyung?_ ” Jinyoung smiles. “Doesn’t this go right back to debut when you said, and I quote, ‘Why does Jinyoung need to be here? Why can’t I just do it by myself?’”

“Are you really bringing that up?” Jaebum stared at him, incredulous. “You know that a solo is good for the band, you _know_ I’m in this band for the long haul, so what the hell is your problem?”

Jinyoung knew. But he also knew how the industry worked: how bands peeled apart, how members morphed into shadows of their former selves, how greed wedged its way in between every friendship you ever had.

“Fine,” Jinyoung said, holding his hands up. “Do what you want. Have you solo debut, hang out with your creepy investor friends, fuck around with Suzy, see if I care.”

Jaebum’s eyes widened. Jinyoung had found his weak point. Checkmate.

“What?” Jaebum spat. “What are you talking about?”

Jinyoung raised his hands up, palms forward, declaring his innocence. “Obviously, you know what’s best for the band.”

Jaebum shook his head, grimacing at the floor. Jinyoung’s heart pounded fiercely. He wished Jaebum would swing at him. Just try it, and see what happened. He’d been wanting to pound his fists into Jaebum since they were eighteen and freshly debuted—

“I am so sick,” Jaebum said in a low, quiet voice, “Of you manipulating me, and everyone else. I honestly don’t know if you’re mad about the solo debut, or Suzy, or something else—and I don’t give a fuck, either. I wish you’d just _stop_.”

Jinyoung stared down Jaebum’s dark and gleaming eyes while silence swirled around his head.

“Fine,” Jinyoung said. Then he turned and walked out of the room.

That was the last time he and Jaebum spoke for three years, up until Jaebum turned up at his townhouse in Kansas City.

Oddly enough, Jaebum didn’t even get his solo debut until after he finished military duty. But maybe some things are fated, events spinning out in a pattern that looks like chaos until you turn around, and see everything lining up.

 

 

 

The press conference preceding the JYP 30th Anniversary Special Concert lasts for two hours, and no one mentions Suzy. They do, however, all clap enthusiastically when the emcee announces that they are witnessing the reunion of groups that haven’t been seen together in years—the full 6-membered line-up of the Wonder Girls, 2PM, Got7. No one mentions Miss A, although Min, Fei, and Jia are all present, sitting with pretty smiles at Jinyoung’s right.

“I forgot how fun this is,” Jinyoung says under his breath to Fei. “Putting on a show.”

Fei’s smile changes almost imperceptibly, and her gaze never wavers from the cameras. “You were always a great actor, Park Jinyoung.”

“Are you calling me a liar, Wang Feifei?”

Fei makes a soft _tsk_ under her breath. “Where’s the _nuna_ there? And no, I’m not. As I remember, you were always too clever to lie. You preferred the gaps in the truth.”

“And here I thought you didn’t remember me at all.” He knows he’s flirting, but Fei is married now, and too good for him anyhow, so it doesn’t count. Besides, he wants to know—what she’s heard, what she thinks of it all, what it’s like to be a forgotten member of one of Kpop’s flagship girl groups.

“I could never forget you,” Fei says. Cameras flash around them. “I remember what a lost little puppy you were, hanging around at our dorms, thinking you could save her.”

That was, maybe, the first year after Miss A’s debut. When he and Suzy were still something like friends. He hadn’t known anything about what lay down the road for Suzy then—he was a horny and smitten teenage boy. But let Fei think what she wants.

“I guess I was mistaken.”

“Of course you were. Suzy knew what she was getting herself into. She never even flinched.”

 

 

Maybe, if Jinyoung could have a do-over, a chance to hit reset on his celebrity life and go back to his trainee days, he’d avoid Suzy completely. He would not befriend her, he definitely would not sneak around after hours to make out with her, and he would not nurse a “what-if” in the darkest corners of his mind for the next decade-plus. Because Suzy was undoubtedly the greatest idol of them all—he worshipped at her feet and ended up with nothing.

In 2018, Jinyoung landed a small role in James Preston Kim’s thriller _Spoken_ , which starred Suzy as a spy on the run. Jinyoung trained with retired special ops turned film stunt consultants for eight weeks, only to have his part cut to about 12 minutes of screen time. But it got him into a higher rank when he enlisted, so it wasn’t a total wash.

Most of the shoot, he hadn’t seen Suzy at all. But then one day he got to set early in the morning, just as the sun formed a thin line on the horizon, and Suzy stood off to one side, away from the crew, a fake smile frozen in place. Jinyoung drifted toward her the same way he had when they were trainees. Suzy was the center of the universe and they were all just stuck in her orbit.

“Cold?” he asked, by way of a greeting, offering his jacket to her. Funny how his heart rate picked up the moment he saw her, like a residual illness that lay dormant in his system until he was in her proximity.

She shook her head. “I’m fine,” she told him, something like a real smile crossing her face.

He wanted to ask her a thousand questions—who are you now, what do you feel, are you alright, can you let me in—but he knew the answer to all those could be found where he stood now, looking at her pleasant and practiced mask.

“You used to tell me the truth,” he said, a little recklessly. His lips curled into a smile, to show he was teasing.

But Suzy just watched him with glittering eyes. “Oh, Jinyoung,” she sighed. She reached out and grasped his hand with her cold fingers. “Even then, you didn’t like the truth very much.”

Jinyoung’s chest clenched, but he kept smiling. “We were both born to be performers, I guess.”

“Do you want the truth?” she asked, keeping her hand clenched around his.

“Only if you want to tell it.”

Her smile changed, just a little, and the effect pulled low in his stomach. Somehow she was more beautiful when she was miserable, and the most beautiful when she was faking. He couldn’t understand that.

“Okay, Jinyoung,” she said. “Here’s the truth: everyone wants me to be an internationally acclaimed actress, except me. And here we are.”

Jinyoung shifted his hand so that her fingers were caught in his grip, now, just a little too tight to be comfortable or easy. “And what do you want?”

“Same thing as you,” she said, and pulled gently away from him. “To be loved.”

 

 

If he were asked, point-blank, whether or not he believes in love, Jinyoung would laugh and say, emphatically and with a hint of sardonic judgment, “no.” He came to that conclusion when he was nineteen and Suzy kissed him on the cheek and said, “I can’t give you what you want, Jinyoung.” He tested it when he was a famous Kpop celebrity, detaching himself from romantic entanglement like a bizarre sort of monk. He maintained it when he went to graduate school in Kansas City and attempted a series of ill-conceived hook-ups: international students he met in his English intensive, stressed out graduate students he snuck kisses with in tiny windowless offices, listless young Americans he took home from trendy bars, and once or twice a former fan who came to him with stars in her eyes and old Got7 albums he dutifully signed afterwards.

But even if he can’t speak it, can’t look directly at it, Jinyoung knows he has his own Achilles heel.

Backstage, two hours before the curtain goes up on the JYP 30th Anniversary Special, Jaebum turns on a dusty television set and the news blinks on screen. Suzy’s perfect face shines in Jaebum’s eyes. And Jinyoung holds his breath.

 

  

At some point in the middle years—the dividing lines blur together, leaving one unbroken memory of music shows and dance practices and shuffling around the arrangement of their bedrooms in that too-small apartment—Jinyoung stood next to Jaebum in the kitchen in the dead of night. It was after they were mildly successful, but before Jaebum injured his back. They were talking about the future, an idle conversation that meandered without an end point. The lamp above the sink hummed and cast a dim glow in the dark room. From somewhere in the apartment echoed the noise of a video game. Jaebum looked tired, but warm, and strong, and like everything Jinyoung was not.

Without really thinking anything at all, Jinyoung leaned over and kissed Jaebum. Gently, as if not to startle him. His mouth was as warm and strong as Jinyoung had imagined, and for a moment, time seemed to puddle up around them. Jinyoung pressed forward.

“No,” Jaebum said suddenly, breaking away and pulling back. He stared hard at the floor while Jinyoung grasped to hold onto the moment as it fell to dust around him. He knew it was gone though, knew it was over before he’d even had a chance to make his case.

Jaebum moved away, the broad lines of his shoulders the only familiar thing Jinyoung had to look at—and here was the thing, Jinyoung always expected it would be like this.

But Jaebum stopped before he left the kitchen and turned halfway around, his roaming eyes almost meeting Jinyoung’s, but not quite.

“I—” Jaebum said, but he faltered. His shoulders were hunched slightly, deflated. He glanced at Jinyoung, then his eyes darted away. “Sorry,” he said. And then he left.

This was the second time Jinyoung fell in love.

 

 

The opening stage of the anniversary special features all of the JYP artists running out onto the stage after Park Jinyoung himself, the name of each group booming through the stadium. Jinyoung walks out with the rest of Got7 beside him, and the screams are deafening. When they reach the end of the stage, they stop to give a bow.

Jaebum grabs his hand. His grip is so tight, the bones in Jinyoung’s hand crunch together.

“Hello, we are Got7!” Jaebum says to the crowd. Jinyoung feels a smile stretch across his face, simultaneously familiar and foreign. The lights shine so bright, tears pierce his eyes. It’s like he never left at all.

 

 

In the spring of 2019, Jinyoung found himself in Hong Kong for a company concert. Their concerts took them all over the world—there were their concerts as a band, and those with the company, which jettisoned them all right back to their hormonally-charged, gossip-filled trainee days. And JYP Entertainment was the “chill” company when it came to these things.

Jinyoung tried to avoid the gossip and the noise, for the most part. He didn’t like rumors, and he didn’t like messes. And in the spring of 2019, the gossip was mostly about when, and how, Suzy would break ties with JYP Entertainment. After all, _Lingua Hanja_ had received an Academy Award.

When everyone else invited him out to the clubs of Hong Kong, Jinyoung feigned sickness, and stayed back. It was late when he finally left his room in search of food, his hood pulled up over his head in a lame attempt to hide himself from the fans waiting out on the street. They took pictures of him, anyway, and squealed when he signed autographs. Sometimes it was hard to feel any sort of respect for the fans.

He returned to the hotel and took the elevator up, vaguely making plans to shower and go to sleep, and walked without thinking toward his room. But he stopped short at the end of the hall.

Two figures stood on the far end, at the door to a room. Jinyoung knew it was Suzy and Jaebum almost before he recognized them, as though his intuition preceded his sight. Suzy put a keycard into the door. Jaebum put his hand on the small of her back. Then they went through the door, and it closed behind them.

In a trance Jinyoung walked down the hall and stood in front of that door. The gold numbers on the door swam in front of his eyes, _1124_. The hall was silent.

He stood outside the closed door and heard nothing—no voices, no music, no squeaking of bedsprings, nothing.

Only silence from the blank face of a hotel room door.

He lifted his hand without thinking, poised to knock. For a long moment he stood there, knuckles only a few inches from the door.

Then his senses returned to him. He let his hand drop and took a step back. Still silence.

With a clenched fist, Jinyoung managed to walk away.

 

 

Jinyoung left Korea for a lot of reasons. Even to himself, he had trouble articulating why he wanted to go. But under that wide-open blue sky of Kansas, he finally felt like himself again—or some version of himself he could live with, anyway.

By the end of 2021, Jaebum’s solo debut had achieved JYP’s greatest dream: a top 10 spot on the _real_ Top 100 US charts. Suzy was an Academy Award winning actress with a role in a Marvel film for the Christmas season. Jinyoung was in Kansas City, perfecting his English and getting a full eight hours of sleep every night.

So what if one night, he scoured the internet until he found one of Jaebum and Suzy on an American television show. Suzy spoke pristine English and Jaebum refused to speak English at all. They were in Los Angeles at the same time—of course, they would see each other. Los Angeles was a long way away from Kansas City.

“Korean entertainment is a little like the system of old Hollywood,” Suzy said on his screen, her eyes twinkling. “We sign to a company, and they train us and develop our projects. Jaebum and I basically grew up together.”

“Made in the same factory, it sounds like,” the host said. Everyone laughed on cue. “Actually, JY Park is a great guy. But the culture shock, it’s got to be tough when you come over here, then.”

“Oh, it is,” Suzy agreed. She put a hand gently on Jaebum’s thigh, not high enough to be scandalous, but Jinyoung paused the video for a split second before he told himself to stop being such an idiot. He pressed play, and watched Jaebum look down at Suzy’s hand, and reach out to peel it away, before the show cut to another camera.

That night Jinyoung dreamed of that hotel room door in Hong Kong, of Jaebum and Suzy rolling around in bed together, and woke up in the dead of night, pissed off and hard.

 

 

Got7 dashes backstage after the opening number and they start stripping down to change for their set. Jinyoung marvels at how it’s suddenly second nature again—not necessarily the preparation, but the adrenaline rush, the craving in his veins to hear a stadium scream out his name.

The waiting room empties of everyone but a few staff and Jinyoung and Jaebum. Jinyoung stands off to the side, his breathing still heavy from running off stage, and he watches Jaebum pull out his phone from his bag. He clicks it on and immediately opens up the news. The room goes silent, it seems, the thrum of bass from the stage pounding in rhythm with Jinyoung’s heart in his ears.

Jaebum crosses over and shows Jinyoung the screen of his phone. _Police plan to give a statement about Bae Suzy tomorrow,_ it reads. _Insiders speculate that she will be released in the next few days._

“So it’s okay, then,” Jaebum says softly. Jinyoung can hear the worry thick in his voice.

He doesn’t quite know why he does it, but he reaches down for Jaebum’s free hand and interlaces their fingers together, even though he knew Jaebum was always funny about holding hands. Maybe because of that.

“Of course it’s okay,” Jinyoung tells him. He pulls up on Jaebum’s hand and very carefully presses his lips against the smooth skin on the back. Just to see what Jaebum will do. It feels like a victory, when Jaebum’s eyes flicker closed.

 

 

Jaebum arrived in Kansas City in May of 2022 with only one suitcase and his passport.

“This is tornado season,” Jinyoung said, letting him inside. He watched Jaebum take off his soaked tennis shoes and wondered how he’d managed to make it here. “You might get stuck here with the storms, you know.”

Jaebum looked up at him and broke into a slow, warm smile. “That’s good,” he said. “I need time to convince you not to hate me.”

Jinyoung was petty and held a grudge like JYP held onto songwriting formulas, but he didn’t hate Jaebum. Couldn’t hate Jaebum.

Later, Jaebum sat on the “vintage” couch Jinyoung had inherited from the previous tenant, dressed in an old JYP Nation concert shirt of Jinyoung’s. And he was angry.

“I can’t do this anymore,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. The broad lines of his shoulders were slumped forward.

“You’re the first Asian pop star to cross over into the mainstream US market,” Jinyoung said carefully. “You’re everything JYP ever dreamed of.”

He thought Jaebum would laugh, but instead he just stared unblinking at the wall in front of him. Outside, the rain was picking up, lashing against the windows.

“The song matters, but it’s easier to create a hit than people think,” Jaebum said, like he was telling Jinyoung a secret. “What you really need is money and connections. And Choi Jungsik is a very well-connected man.”

“So what are you saying?”

“I’m saying that all that bullshit about SM and slave contracts is child’s play compared to this. I don’t even understand how it all works. The money I make bounces around from the US to the UK to China to Nigeria to Switzerland to the freaking Cayman Islands, and then it somehow ends up in Choi Jungsik’s pockets.”

“You have proof of this?”

Jaebum laughs. His eyes are rimmed red. “Hell no. You think there’s an _evidence trail?_ Suzy’s worth nothing now, you know. He’s taken everything she ever had in savings and everything she makes now.”

For a little while, all that could be heard was the pattering of rain against the roof. Jinyoung watched Jaebum’s face for some sort of sign for what to do—but for once, the leader sat defeated.

Jinyoung rubbed a palm over his face. “This is embezzlement, you know. You should report him.”

Jaebum laughed. “And what difference would it make?”

Jinyoung knew he was right. Men that well-connected did not go to jail. They might pay a fee, and give an apology, but then they would disappear with the stolen money and maybe, on their deathbed, their conscience would twinge just a little bit.

Jinyoung sighed and looked at Jaebum. “What are you telling me for?”

Jaebum smiled slowly, almost like he was shy.

“I figured, you’re the most manipulative asshole I know.” His eyes reflected the lights of the room. “If anyone can figure a way out of this, it’s got to be you.”

 

 

III. destinations

 

 

 

 

  
**The Idol as Commodity**

_…posits that any site of infatuation must be devoid of a true signified. Rather, the sign itself becomes the object of the audience’s adoration. In Kpop, the idol is intentionally bereft of anything but the_ appearance _of individuality. The visual image of perfection, achieved through plastic surgery, makeup, digital editing, and lighting, is complemented by the social image of perfection. The labor involved in the creation of the idol is removed from the public eye, thus making the idol a commodity fetish. In order to become a product for consumption, the idol must act like himself without_ being _himself: individual peculiarity tantalizes the audience’s appetite for relationship without satisfying it. And it does not end with the endearing or tantalizing performance the idol can provide—even the controversial things an idol says or does become transformed in the public eye and nationally contextualized, so the Korean public consumes an idol’s dating scandals just as the Western fans consume idols’ comments or actions they deem negative in their own context. The negative and the positive aspects of the individual are drained of their significance_ to _that individual in order to create the idol, who is only realized as a site of infatuation and a mechanism for entertainment. In this contemporary, globalized era, where the product itself does not carry its worth within itself but rather in what it provides access to (consider the smart phone), new products must fill in the space. Thus, the Kpop idol, human without human entanglements. Every thing the idol does can be consumed as entertainment. But at what point do they cease to be human?_

 

x

 

“To me, love is when you’re willing to do everything in your power to take care of and support someone else. At whatever cost. Nothing less.”  
_—Jinyoung Park, Ceci Magazine, January 2019_

 

x

 

TRANSCRIPT: [REDACTED], AUGUST 23, 2024  
FOR “The Suspect”

_[REDACTED]: If I tell you this, you can’t put my name with it._

_Interviewer: I understand._

_[REDACTED]: On anything. I have pictures of you, you know. From back then. That kind of evidence could get you in a lot of shit._

_Interviewer: You have my word._

_[REDACTED]: Okay, the truth is—Jinyoung was probably always in love with Suzy. At least as long as I knew him. But at some point, and I don’t know if this is true, he thought she and Jaebum were fucking around, and he got mad. Classic case of jealousy. He and Jaebum were never the same after that._

_Interviewer: And what about now?_

_[REDACTED]: I don’t know about now. But Jinyoung—he would do anything for Suzy, if she asked._

 

 

 

 

x

 

 

June 4, 2024. Suzy lifted the gun with a trembling hand.

“You lied to me,” she said. “You told me you loved me. I fell in love with a lie.”

“I wasn’t lying,” Jungsik pleaded, his eyes on the shaking gun. “I loved you. It was all real, Suzy, you have to believe me.”

“You took everything I had to my name and planned to scrape up the rest in the divorce.” Suzy suddenly calmed. The gun steadied. “But the money doesn’t even matter, you know? Not really. Because you robbed me of everything else, too.”

Jungsik’s pleading eyes drifted from Suzy’s, to the gun, and then up to meet Jinyoung’s.

 

 

It began in Seoul, in January of 2023. Jinyoung arrived before the snow hit, blanketing the city in white. It felt like a blessing, somehow, for everything that would come after, his mind drifting to the series of documents he had stored on his laptop. He went to see his family first, cheerfully indulging in all the food his mother cooked for him, chatting with his sister’s fiancé, sitting quietly with his father and reassuring him that he was happy and healthy, and that America was not at all so far away as it felt.

Late one night, when more snow was falling in wet clumps on the concrete, he stole away from his parents’ home and took the train into the city. He watched the snow blow by the windows and relaxed into the familiar murmurs of Korean around him. In another time of his life, he might have been noticed if he went out like this—or, rather, he might have been followed. But now he was free.

In the city, he followed instructions and let himself into an apartment complex by the parking garage entrance, then a backdoor that didn’t have a fancy video camera system but instead just a voice intercom. He pressed the button.

“Hello?”

Suzy’s voice jolted through him. For a moment, Jinyoung couldn’t speak at all.

“It’s me,” he finally choked out. The intercom went silent, and the security door unlocked with a loud clang. Jinyoung took the elevator up.

When Suzy opened the door to her penthouse apartment, Jinyoung stood still for a few seconds to steady himself. Neither of them spoke—normal greetings felt awkward and alien, but Jinyoung didn’t know what else to say.

Suzy finally spoke first. “Jaebum says you have a plan.”

“I have something,” Jinyoung told her. “I don’t know if it will work.”

Suzy watched him for a moment, like she was about to say something, then she just tilted her head in a half-shrug, and let him inside.

Jinyoung sat on her fancy white leather couch and opened his laptop. On his laptop, he had saved months’ worth of documents Jaebum had sent him, detailing every last financial transaction Jaebum had access to. The gaps in the documents spoke volumes. It was far more than losing loose pocket change in the cracks of your sofa.

Jinyoung showed Suzy everything, explaining what he’d gathered while Suzy sat, wordlessly, watching him. Finally he came to the end.

“You could take what’s here and add to it,” Jinyoung told her, “And the two of you could take him to court. I think you’d win.”

But Suzy shook her head. “I have a good lawyer,” she said. “I already asked him. My husband—” Jinyoung’s stomach tightened uncomfortably— “Is untouchable. Jaebum said you have another plan.”

Jinyoung carefully closed his laptop and set it aside. “My other plan might not work.”

“But it might.”

Jinyoung searched her face for any sign of reservations, or even misery, but found only a detached sort of resolve. Still, he couldn’t get the words to form. His plan was risky, and Jinyoung didn’t care for those odds.

“Jinyoung,” Suzy said, covering his hand with hers. “I know—I know what this must look like to you, and maybe you want to just leave me to deal with my own shitty choices. And maybe you’re right, I don’t know. But—I just need you to try. Please.”

Jinyoung hesitated just a moment longer. Her hand was smooth and cold on top of his.

“There’s a tried-and-true method for getting people to give up their money,” Jinyoung said simply.

 

 

A lot of money goes through the entertainment industry.

When that much money is involved, everyone touching it is no more than three degrees removed from either government or organized crime, or both, depending on the country.

Choi Jungsik made money in a lot of countries.

Choi Jungsik was only one degree away from both government and organized crime in most of those.

In truth, Choi Jungsik was probably the con artist of the century. He made money for everyone who employed him, exorbitant amounts. His reputation was impeccable. He was the kind of person an entertainment company should certainly hire when their favorite young actress was suddenly launched onto the world stage. He was even a better man to have on payroll when their favorite young pop singer was due for a solo act and the US market was ripe for something out of the norm.

Choi Jungsik was careful, and smart. He only fleeced from the excesses. He made all of his employers so rich they would never notice a fee overcharged here, a cost invented there. And most of all, Choi Jungsik knew who depended on him. Young artists who should have stayed home, instead of trying their luck on the international card table, needed him more than anyone else.

But what Choi Jungsik didn’t realize was that idols might be manufactured for the stage, but the stage demanded a certain kind of sharp edge from them. No one survived life as a Korean pop idol if they didn’t know how to put up a fight.

Bae Suzy and Im Jaebum were two of the most perfect idols ever offered to the stage, and so their teeth were the sharpest and their fighting instinct the most brutal.

And Park Jinyoung had, after all, left the stage, and was still alive.

 

 

The first letter was easy.

_We know you’ve been stealing from people you shouldn’t be._

The second letter was easier.

_Ancient cultures punished thieves by cutting off their fingers or their hands. What should it be for you, Choi Jungsik?_

The third letter included one scan from a movie deal, with the fees Jungsik had added to the payment highlighted in yellow.

The fourth letter:

_One day someone is going to come looking for what you stole from them._

A week letter, Suzy left a voicemail on Jinyoung’s phone, whispering at a rapid pace.

“He’s scared. Keep going.”

 

 

After the eleventh letter, Jaebum called.

“He’s divorcing her,” he said, his tone thick with anger. “If we don’t play this right, he’s going to take everything.”

Jinyoung ran his his palm over his face. “We just have to push him in the right—”

“Take this seriously!” Jaebum growled, and a heavy _smack_ sounded over the line. “He’s scared—okay, great! He’s going to take his money— _our_ money—and run. And then we’re worse off than before.”

“I am taking this seriously,” Jinyoung said as calmly as he could. It was January of 2024, and snow fell thickly outside his window. “If Suzy can get me one last piece of evidence against him—something damning—then we can make our demands.”

“More damning than what you already have?” Jaebum spat out.

“There has to be something.”

Jaebum hung up the phone.

A few hours later, an email appeared in Jinyoung’s inbox. It was an audio file, eight hours long. Jinyoung hit play, and Choi Jungsik’s voice filled up the room.

 _You’ve been holding out on me,_ Jinyoung replied.

 _Can’t rush these things,_ Suzy wrote back. _And if I remember right, you always wanted to get to the climax way too soon._

Jinyoung smiled to himself. And then he went out in the snowstorm and bought a dozen flashdrives, old-fashioned ones. At home, he parsed the audio file into little snippets, easy to send in letters across the Pacific Ocean.

_You’ll have to pay up if you want this to stay quiet._

And then in March of 2024, Jungsik finally wrote to the email Jinyoung had listed on each letter, a burner email he’d set up to look like it came out of Hong Kong. His name read _1124_ , for the hotel room door he’d stood outside. Sometimes Jinyoung knew he was a little screwed up.

 _Tell me where,_ Jungsik’s email read.

 

 

In June of 2024, Jinyoung got on a plane bound for Busan. He thought it was funny, somehow, that the first time he returned home in over a year was so he could blackmail his ex-friend-with-benefits’s husband. But life was full of funny twists and turns.

Jaebum met him in the airport, a cap pulled low over his face and a cheap white surgical mask covering his mouth and nose. After a terse “hello,” neither spoke. Instead they strode out to the parking lot, where Suzy sat in the passenger seat of a rented SUV, reading something on her phone. She looked up when they approached, and smiled. Jinyoung recognized her look as camera-ready. She was prepared to put on a show.

The plan was simple enough. Jinyoung had carefully thought out how to maintain leverage over Jungsik. All the evidence they had collected was set to be sent out to Jungsik’s previous employers, men in government and entertainment who wouldn’t hesitate to ruin his career, or worse. It was all timed, so Jungsik would have to return Jaebum and Suzy’s money if he wanted Jinyoung to stop those emails from being sent. Jinyoung hadn’t decided whether he really would stop them—he felt like digging the knife into Jungsik and twisting it, just so he would finally feel some pain.

“Easy flight?” Suzy asked, turning around in her seat. The lights in the city were coming on as the sun set, and Suzy was awash in blue and gold light. Jinyoung glanced at the back of Jaebum’s head, but he drove without wavering his gaze from the road.

“It was fine,” Jinyoung said. He smiled. “I slept the whole time.”

Suzy’s eyes narrowed with the hint of a smile. “You used to tell me the truth, Park Jinyoung.”

Her words reverberated with echoes from long ago. Jaebum’s knuckles turned white on the steering wheel.

“I’m not nervous, if that’s what you’re asking,” Jinyoung said. “But what about you? Three years of marriage, and now this?”

Suzy smiled a little, glanced up at Jaebum, looked out at the road, then back at Jinyoung.

“He underestimated me,” she said quietly. “You know I hate that.”

Jinyoung grinned in spite of himself. “Oh, Suzy, believe me—I know.”

 

 

They spent the night in a cheap hotel on the outskirts of the city, two full beds and no questions asked. Jaebum and Jinyoung gave Suzy one of the beds to herself and shared the other, without anyone discussing it, and no one looked at each other for most of the night.

Jinyoung woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of someone crying, a light in the bathroom and two figures reflected in the mirror on the wall. But it passed into a dream, and in the morning, he wasn’t sure it happened at all.

 

 

Jungsik had agreed to meet them at his and Suzy’s vacation home, tucked away in the mountains far from the city. He knew the stipulations: if Jinyoung, who he knew only as 1124, did not leave with the money he came for, then the emails could not be stopped. It was as safe as they were going to get. But in the morning, as they prepared to leave, Jinyoung realized that Suzy wanted to be a little safer when she took a handgun out of her suitcase and started counting the bullets.

“Are you out of your mind?” Jaebum hissed. He took the gun out of Suzy’s hands and she let him, her eyes gleaming in the dim light. “Where the hell did you even get that?”

Suzy stayed silent. Jinyoung reached forward and carefully took the gun away from Jaebum.

“It doesn’t matter,” Jinyoung told him. “We need to get on the road.”

Jaebum’s eyes didn’t move from the gun. Then, suddenly, he turned away, swinging the keys of the rental car between his fingers as he walked out of the room.

A look passed between Jinyoung and Suzy. He flipped the safety and placed the gun in the inside pocket of his jacket, for safekeeping.

 

 

Jinyoung didn’t know what to expect as they drove down winding roads through the mountains. When they finally turned down a narrow road and emerged at a large gate, he felt like he had driven into a dream. Nothing happening now was real. They were in an in-between place, without pasts or futures, without consequences.

“It’s just an intercom. No video,” Suzy said, pointing at a box by the gate. “Let Jinyoung do it. We don’t want him to know it’s us yet.”

So Jinyoung got out of the car and pressed the button on the intercom box. He waited until a crackling _Hello_ sounded on the other end of the line, and then said simply, “I’m here.” After a moment, the gates unlocked. Jinyoung climbed back into the car and Jaebum drove them inside.

The grounds past the gate were even more expansive and slightly overgrown, giving the place a wild feeling and increasing Jinyoung’s sense that they had slipped out of reality. He looked over at Suzy for any sign of unease, but all he could see was her profile, and she seemed utterly calm. Jaebum, on the other hand, tapped rapidly at the side of the steering wheel.

Jinyoung got out of the car first and walked up to the door of the house. It was large, with the same unkempt look of the grounds—in need of a paint job, but obviously expensive. Behind the house, the trees opened up to reveal a view of the mountainside and the valley below them.

The door opened. “Let’s get this over with,” Jungsik said gruffly. He stopped when he met Jinyoung’s eyes. “Don’t—don’t I know you?” he asked.

Jinyoung heard the sound of car doors closing behind him and Jungsik’s eyes shifted to look. Then his face paled.

“Why don’t we take this inside?” Jinyoung suggested.

Jungsik nodded, but his eyes didn’t waver from Suzy as she stepped past him, and into the house. Jaebum stood in front of the threshold, arms crossed over his chest, glaring at Jungsik. The three of them waited for someone else to move first, until finally Jinyoung stepped into the dark hallway.

At the end of the hall was a sitting room, where Suzy had sat down on a large, cream-colored couch, and was staring out the floor-to-ceiling windows. The mountainside view was gorgeous and peaceful. Somehow it brought a sense of calm over Jinyoung and he stood still for a moment, hands in his pockets, looking out.

“Sit down,” Jaebum growled behind him. Jinyoung turned to watch Jungsik obediently perch on the couch beside Suzy, his palms out in front of him.

“So it’s the two of you?” Jungsik asked, crooking a smile. He turned to Jinyoung without putting his hands down. “But what are you doing here?” It almost seemed like he was looking for an ally in Jinyoung. But he wouldn’t find one.

“They asked me to be here,” Jinyoung said with a shrug. He smiled and leaned against the polished wood desk that lined one side of the room. A laptop sat open on it, and a phone beside it was lit up, silently ringing. Jinyoung glanced at it, wondering at the caller who was lucky enough to be calling at this moment. Then he turned back to Jungsik, who was still smiling, but his eyes were wide. He was frightened.

“This isn’t a reunion,” Jaebum said with gritted teeth.

“Look—” Jungsik stood up.

“Sit down.”

Although Jungsik was taller than Jaebum, he cowed in the face of Jaebum’s anger, and sat down again. Suzy’s gaze hadn’t moved from the window in all this time. She seemed almost unaware of Jungsik next to her and sat utterly still, like a china doll.

“You’re going to set things right,” Jaebum instructed. “You’ve bullied us this far, but it stops now.”

“Okay, fine,” Jungsik agreed. “But you’ve got to understand—there was so much you didn’t understand—”

“I don’t care,” Jaebum said.

Jinyoung saw what Jungsik most likely didn’t see: Jaebum was exhausted. His anger wasn’t fueled by some burning rage in his chest. Jinyoung had seen that fire before—had been on the receiving end of it—but that was mere embers now, and instead, Jaebum’s anger was born of old ashes. Silent and weary, this anger frightened Jinyoung more than the old kind ever had. His heart picked up a few beats, watching him.

“—think you can tell me what I didn’t understand?” Jaebum was saying. “I understand this much—you wanted to go play in America and you finally found some puppets to make it happen. It was _complicated?_ Big fucking deal. We—” Jaebum gestured between himself and Suzy, “are not your toys.”

This seemed to rouse Suzy from whatever spell she’d gone under. She stood up from the couch and walked over to stand beside Jinyoung, her heels clicking on the wood floor. When she glanced at him, he saw that her eyes were cold dark stone.

“This is how this goes, Jungsik,” she said in a flat voice. “We’ve done the math for how much you owe us. We’re not asking for anything more than that. The sooner you agree, the sooner we’re done here.”

Jungsik’s demeanor changed suddenly. He turned from Jaebum to Suzy and seemed to gather his strength. “I’ll get it back in court, you know,” he said, his voice smooth and calm.

“You—” Jaebum raised his arm and Jungsik instinctively flinched. But before he could hit him, Suzy had slipped her hand into Jinyoung’s jacket and pulled out the handgun hidden there. She flipped off the safety and held the gun carefully, with a familiarity fostered by dozens of special trainings over the course of her films, but like she hadn’t yet made up her mind.

“I’m not negotiating with you, Jungsik,” she said. “That’s been my mistake all these years. Thinking you could change.”

Jaebum spotted the gun and took several steps backward, his face draining of color. It took Jungsik a moment longer to see it, and then he stood up slowly, his hands outstretched again.

“Suzy,” he said, breathless, “I was only ever trying to do what was best for you—for _us_ —that’s all I ever—”

But Suzy lifted the gun, cutting off his words before he had a chance to finish.

“You lied to me,” she said. “You told me you loved me. I fell in love with a lie.”

“I wasn’t lying,” Jungsik said. “I loved you. It was all real, Suzy, you have to believe me.”

From behind Suzy, Jinyoung could only see the straight line of her spine, Jungsik’s wide eyes, and Jaebum staring between them, shocked.

In that moment, suspended in time, Jinyoung suddenly knew everything that would happen. Jungsik would be dead and the three of them would go on, happily ever after. Free.

“You took everything I had to my name and planned to scrape up the rest in the divorce. But the money doesn’t even matter, you know? Not really. Because you robbed me of everything else, too.”

He could feel Jungsik’s eyes on him, pleading, but Jinyoung couldn’t help but smile.

Suzy’s aim steadied, but then she stopped. He could tell from the set of her shoulders that she couldn’t bring herself to do what needed to be done. Then she turned and their eyes locked, the same understanding that had always been there passing between them.

“Do it,” Suzy whispered, putting the gun in his hand.

 

 

Two bullets to the head and Jungsik fell to the floor.

Suzy cleaned Jinyoung’s fingerprints off the gun.

 

 

They stayed in the house with the body for another two hours while Suzy scoured Jungsik’s computer for their money.

Jaebum stood for a long time looking at the blood spattered on the cream couch, Jungsik’s body on the floor, and then he walked out the back door and sat down on the porch outside. Jinyoung followed him a moment later, sitting himself carefully next to him, afraid to come too close.

It seemed like a long time before Jaebum spoke.

“Did you,” he said finally, glancing in Jinyoung’s direction, but not meeting his eyes. “Did you two—did you plan for—”

“No,” Jinyoung said firmly. “Of course not.”

Jaebum nodded several times, and ran his palm over his face. The anger had gone out of his body, and now he was just exhausted. Jinyoung gingerly laid a hand over his shoulder. The muscle tensed immediately, but then relaxed. Jinyoung wanted to say, _you’re free now,_ but he didn’t know how Jaebum would take it.

“I swear, Jinyoung,” Jaebum said very quietly. He stopped for a moment, twisting a ring around his index finger. “If they lock you up—if you leave me again—”

Then he stopped. Jinyoung knew he wouldn’t say anything else.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Jinyoung said. He tightened his grip on Jaebum’s shoulder. “I promise.”

The door behind them slid open. “We’re done here,” Suzy said.

When Jinyoung turned around, the sunlight caught on Suzy’s hair and he thought she’d never looked so alive and perfect. He looked over at Jaebum and knew that he saw it, too, by the slack line of his jaw and the gleam in his eyes. But for once, jealousy didn’t crackle in Jinyoung’s chest. Things were different now, although he wasn’t yet sure how.

 

 

In the end, they left the body lying on the floor and closed the door behind them. As they walked, Jinyoung still did not feel like they had woken up from the dream. It was almost like being on stage, with sunlight shining on Suzy’s hair instead of a spotlight, Jaebum walking with a purpose and twirling keys between his fingers instead of a microphone, and Jinyoung with the strange feeling that everything in his life had just slipped into place. But when he walked around to the back door of the SUV, he saw that Jaebum’s hands were shaking too badly to fit the key into the lock.

“Do you want me to drive?” Jinyoung asked.

“It’s fine.” Jaebum finally got the door unlocked.

They climbed inside, and began the winding journey down the mountain roads. As they drove, Jinyoung looked past the trees at the wide mountain views, the blue sky of his own country. Suzy pulled out her phone when they were halfway down the mountain. Jaebum’s knuckles were white against the steering wheel.

“Yes, this is Suzy.” Suzy looked bored on the phone, like she was making a particularly tedious business call. “I’m afraid my husband is dead.”

The car drifted toward the middle of the road and then jerked back. Suzy braced herself against the dash.

“In our vacation home outside of Busan. Oh no, I never go there in the summer. It’s awful. Jungsik went there to do work. I imagine he won’t be found for months, will he?”

They emerged out of the narrow, winding mountain roads at the edge of the valley, and suddenly there were more cars on the road. Jaebum slammed on the breaks before he rear-ended the car in front of them. Jinyoung reached over the seat and grabbed his shoulder, hard. “Stop the car.”

“I’m fine,” Jaebum said, glancing at Jinyoung in the rearview mirror.

“Hyung, stop the car.”

With a shake of his head, Jaebum pulled onto the side of the road and put the car in park. Jinyoung got out of the backseat and opened up the driver’s door, practically pulling Jaebum up.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

Jaebum stared blankly at the road behind them, where the house and the dead man were hidden. He leaned heavily against Jinyoung. Gingerly, Jinyoung shifted his weight until he could push Jaebum into the back seat and close the door. Jaebum immediately slumped against the window, and Jinyoung got into the driver’s seat, and pulled back out onto the road.

Here, he could make out the voice on the other end of Suzy’s call.

 _Do you have any idea who killed him?_ the voice asked. Male, slightly gravelly, Seoul accent. Jinyoung glanced at Suzy, but she didn’t look his way.

“I suspect it was Cho Chulsoo,” Suzy said, surveying her nails. “They’ve been at odds for over a year.”

 _He and your husband used to be such good partners._ The voice heaved a sigh. _Really a shame, what greed brings out in people._

“That’s true,” Suzy said softly. “I never trusted him, you know.”

_Me neither. It’s a good thing you weren’t with your husband, or you might be dead too._

“You’re right,” Suzy agreed. In the rearview mirror, Jinyoung saw that Jaebum had his eyes closed, and his face was drained of color.

_I’ll get in touch with my friend at the police department. Then I’ll go over Jungsik’s will to see what plans he made. I’m so sorry for your loss, Suzy. What a horrible way to die._

“It’s awful.” Suzy pressed two perfectly manicured fingers against her forehead. “I hope that the police find the killer quickly.”

_My friend is the best in the police department, don’t worry._

“Thank you for all your help,” Suzy said, and then she hung up the phone. She glanced at Jinyoung, then turned her eyes toward the road. “My lawyer,” she said.

“He sounds like he’s very good,” Jinyoung said, the hair raising on his arm, as if he were chilled.

“He’s the best there is,” Suzy answered, and fell silent.

 

 

They stopped at a lakeside a few miles out of the city when Jaebum told them, “I need some air.”

Jaebum wandered down to the water’s edge, picked up a rock, and threw it so hard it didn’t skip, but immediately fell under the surface. The next one was the same. Jinyoung leaned against the body of the car and watched Jaebum’s figure, the tight lines of motion, contorted with something like rage, or maybe fear.

Suzy got out of the car and leaned next to Jinyoung, her arms wrapped around herself. Jinyoung glanced at her. He hadn’t noticed she was wearing a white dress: the vision of purity, or mourning, depending on where you spun the globe.

“Did you love him?” Jinyoung asked. He didn’t know who he meant, exactly. Jaebum stopped skipping rocks and stood still, staring out at the water.

“Of course,” Suzy said. She was close enough for him to smell her perfume, flowery and feminine. Her hair tickled his arm, but he didn’t move. “Some men know what to say to get into a woman’s pants. Jungsik knew what to say to get into her bank account.” She laughed lightly. It was hard to tell what was real.

“I’m sorry.”

Suzy smiled, a smile that wasn’t pretty, couldn’t be put on screen. For a moment she looked at him, then she leaned over and kissed his cheek.

“It’s all right now, thanks to you,” she said.

Then she left him and walked down to the water’s edge, standing next to Jaebum and pressing her hand against his back. From the distance, Jinyoung wondered if Jaebum was crying or simply staring out at the water, immobile and unreadable, consumed with guilt. They stood there for a long time, Suzy and Jaebum down at the water and Jinyoung by the car, watching them.

 

 

They returned to their hotel room just as dusk was settling in around the outskirts of the city. With the dusk came the realization of what had happened. What he had done. Jinyoung made it inside the door and crashed into the bathroom, retching up the contents of his stomach into the toilet. He imagined blood on his hands, blood on the wall. The dream had ended and he’d awoken to a nightmare.

Then he felt a cool hand on his forehead, brushing his hair away from his face. Gently, so gently, Suzy ran her hand back through his hair, along the nape of his neck. She murmured “it’s okay” in his ear and finally he thought the nausea had passed and he leaned back on his heels. She put her arms around him and held him there for a moment, until finally he was able to stand and rinse out his mouth and look at his bloodshot eyes in the mirror. Suzy stood behind him, like a ghost. What had he done? He felt his legs buckle, and he caught himself against the side of the sink.

And then Jaebum’s arms were around him, half-dragging him out of the bathroom and back to the hotel room. He placed him on one of the beds—Suzy’s bed, Jinyoung thought absently, but he couldn’t seem to form words—and then he pulled off Jinyoung’s shoes, one after the other, purposefully and intensely, the way Jaebum did everything. And Suzy was watching them, her arms around herself. She didn’t seem happy or sad or anything at all, but then she looked at Jinyoung, and he thought she might really—finally—be in love. After all this time.

Jaebum stepped away to put aside his shoes and Suzy came forward, taking Jinyoung’s face between her hands. “It needed to be done,” she said very softly, stroking her thumbs against his cheeks. “Don’t feel guilty, Jinyoung. It had to be done.”

After that, Jinyoung remembers very little. Falling asleep with Suzy’s head on his chest and Jaebum at his back, tangled up together, part nightmare and part dream. A peace flooding his body.

He knew then—knows now—that he would do anything for them. Anything in the world.

 

 

On August 25, 2024, Suzy is released from custody at 6:30 AM. Articles hit the internet at 7:50 AM, when Suzy has already safely returned to her parents’ home, away from prying eyes.

At 8:30 AM, Jinyoung wakes up to a message from Suzy. _Wait a few days_ it reads, _and then I’ll come to you. You won’t leave Korea without seeing me, will you?_

A few minutes later, another follows, this one from Jaebum.

_We’re free._

 

 

IV. safe haven

 

 

 

 

  
**The Idol in Society**

 

_For the viewer, the site of infatuation known as the “idol” is an empty signifier to be filled. For the celebrities themselves, though, the weight of such expectations cannot be borne under normal human circumstances, hence the idol who either willingly leaves their success or so fully embraces it that they pursue success indefinitely. But it is not only the consequences for the idol as a human individual that should matter. What, instead, does the existence of the idol suggest about the current state of civilization? Cultural power lies in the commodified individual and, like the idols of ancient civilization, these all too human idols come to exist outside the realm of common human morality and sensibility. Like the Hollywood celebrity, their mistakes are consumed as eagerly by the waiting public as their successes; the negative, vilifying comments those mistakes procure on the internet are only evidence of the public’s eager engagement. The idol disliked by the public can be as lucrative as the idol who is liked. And the idol who is liked can do no wrong. In this way, moral standards become filtered and propagated through the satellite of the idol. Should an idol do something truly immoral, the public would rewrite the story for them, absolving them of their crimes._

 

x

 

“I’m so sorry to all the fans who have supported me for all of these years and who will be sad to see me go. Please support me in my journey to become a better Jinyoung.”  
— _Park Jinyoung, in his last post to fans, August 2019_

 

x

 

TRANSCRIPT: [REDACTED], AUGUST 24, 2024  
FOR “The Suspect”

_Interviewer: You and Suzy were friends, is that correct?_

_Park Jinyoung: You could say that._

_Interviewer: What would you say, instead?_

_Park Jinyoung: I would say that Suzy let you think whatever you wanted to think. So if you wanted to think of yourselves as friends, then she’d reflect that feeling right back at you._

_Interviewer: What do you believe Suzy thought of your relationship as?_

_Park Jinyoung: I think that Suzy thought of herself and everyone else the same way—in terms of use value._

 

 

 

 

x

 

 

On August 24, 2024—a day after the JYP 30th JYP’s 30th Anniversary Special was filmed, and the night before Suzy was released—Jinyoung stepped out of his hotel room and found a woman sitting outside his door. The whole situation was so oddly reminiscent of his time as an idol that he almost thought it ordinary, until she stood up in a hurry and bowed.

“I’m sorry to bother you like this,” she said quickly. “I’m a reporter for Vale Magazine, and I was wondering if I could interview you for a story I’m writing about Bae Suzy.” She said _Vale Magazine_ in perfect English, which made sense, since it was a well-regarded US-based magazine. Jinyoung had a subscription, back in Kansas City.

“So you sat outside my hotel room until I happened to go out?” Jinyoung kept a neutral expression, unsure if he was amused or annoyed. She looked familiar, but he couldn’t place her.

“Reporting is difficult,” she shrugged. “It will only take a few minutes.”

He realized then that she was the same reporter who had stopped him as he left rehearsals a few days ago—but that still wasn’t it. She looked like someone he’d known a long time ago, maybe in high school, or in his college classes he attended sporadically.

Maybe because she looked so familiar, Jinyoung suddenly decided he was amused. “Okay,” he said, “If it won’t take very long.”

He stepped aside and allowed her into his room. She took her shoes off and went to perch in the desk chair, pushing her glasses up on her nose, like the idea of a reporter more than the real thing. Jinyoung followed her, closing the door behind him, and sat down on the end of the bed.

The initial questions were dull—how he’d met Suzy (as trainees), whether they’d been friends (in a way), how long it had been since he last saw her (years and years).

Here the reporter paused, chewing the end of her pen, like she wasn’t sure if she should proceed or not. Then she turned off the voice recorder on her phone and turned to him, folding her hands in front of her.

“This is off the record,” she said.

Jinyoung felt his pulse pick up a notch. Something was taking a turn he didn’t like, hadn’t anticipated. He couldn’t predict where this woman would go next, and he could only smile and pretend like he didn’t have any concerns in the whole world.

“I spoke with a number of sources,” she said very slowly, her gaze hard but steady. “They all told me things you haven’t said.”

“What sort of things?” Jinyoung asked, offering a small smile. She blushed at that, which surprised him. He didn’t know where this was going at all.

“That you were, or are, in love with Suzy. That Im Jaebum is, too. That you left Got7 because of jealousy.”

“It’s not true,” Jinyoung said, still smiling.

“I didn’t think so, either,” she said. Now she wouldn’t meet his eyes. “But then I started doing more research and I learned some things that looked—suspicious.”

Jinyoung sat very still.

“What are you suggesting, here?”

“You were in Seoul two months ago,” she said rapidly, still not meeting his eyes. “For just a week, right in the window of time when Choi Jungsik went missing. You said you haven’t spoken to Im Jaebum in years, but your friends in Kansas City say they’ve met him. You said you and Suzy weren’t close, but you and she sent encrypted emails back and forth for over a year.”

Jinyoung’s heart beat hard and the room quieted as he stared at this woman. Somehow she had all the pieces of the puzzle laid in front of her, and she was asking him to put them together for her—

Suddenly Jinyoung realized where he had seen her before.

Standing outside the old dorms, day in and day out. Behind him in line when he went to the airport, every time. At every performance, her face always hidden by a camera.

And once he remembered her, he knew why she’d come here to interview him. She had all the puzzle pieces, but she didn’t want them to be true.

“That’s a lot of information to come by,” he said. She glanced up at him again.

“It’s all circumstantial.”

“Are you going to print it?”

“I can’t,” she said quietly. “That would mean admitting how I came to have your passport number—” She stopped and stared at the floor. So they didn’t change, when you stepped out of the limelight. Maybe the love of fans was the most pure, in its own distorted chaos.

“I was in Seoul two months ago,” Jinyoung said. “For a funeral.” It was true, in a way.

She looked up with bright eyes. Too hopeful, somehow innocent. Jinyoung smiled.

“As for my relationships with Suzy and Jaebum—those are complicated. You can imagine why we don’t often talk about it, especially to others. But I’ve known them for so many years, we can’t just—stop knowing each other.”

“I understand.” Her shoulders relaxed and she gave him a genuine smile.

If Jinyoung hadn’t noticed that the phone on the desk beside her was still recording, he would have thought all was well. But she hadn’t turned it off at all, only made it seem like she had. He wondered how much she trusted him. Maybe she’d already been disillusioned, and was prepared to print her findings. They were scarce—but they were too close to the truth.

She stood up and gathered her things. Jinyoung stood up as well, trying to figure out how he could keep her here long enough to change her mind.

“You know—” he said, not fully aware of his words. “You can stay.”

She looked up at him with a starry-eyed uncertainty he’d seen on too many fans before. She was teetering between leaving and staying, her career and the person she’d once craved.

Jinyoung smiled, and took her notebook out of her hands.

 

 

 

 

x

 

_Early in the morning of August 25, 2024, Suzy was released from police custody. Statements followed soon after, stating that after a thorough investigation, the lead detective on the case was certain of Suzy’s innocence, and due process would be followed to identify the true killer. A few weeks later, police arrested Cho Chulsoo, a longtime business partner of Choi Jungsik. Though Cho protests his innocence, the Korean press expects him to stand trial soon, and according to police sources, the evidence points unequivocally to the man that once helped Choi build his empire._

_In the aftermath, Suzy has inherited Choi’s substantial wealth. On September 12, 2024, she released a short statement noting that her accountants had found some discrepancies in Choi’s records, and that she would seek to right whatever wrongs she could. Acknowledging that her marriage to Choi was often fraught, Suzy stated that in the wake of his death, she could only do what she thought right. A few days later, employees of JYP Entertainment reported receiving enormous sums of money, suggesting that Choi had been embezzling for some time. No doubt a separate case will be mounted against Cho Chulsoo to see if he practiced business in the same way as Choi._

_Bae Suzy has become an enormously wealthy woman, substantially more so than before. “I am grieved by my husband’s untimely and wrongful murder,” she said in a statement released by her publicist on September 18. “Going forward, I hope to honor the man I once knew, the man I married, who saw his job as a way to benefit others who worked with him and for him.”_

This Side of Nowhere _, her new film, has so far been a hit at the box office, a difficult feat for arthouse cinema. In the film, her character grieves her husband’s death by engaging in philanthropic work that takes her around the globe, challenging her limited worldviews. It would seem that in this case, life imitates art, albeit in an even more tragic way._

 

 

 

 

x

 

 

The door to Jaebum’s apartment swings open.

“Took you long enough,” Jaebum says. Jinyoung grins, and follows him inside.

Suzy is already standing on the apartment’s balcony, a wine glass in her hand. Jaebum pours another and offers it to Jinyoung, who takes it and stands next to Suzy, looking out over the city.

“You should come work for me, Jinyoung,” she says, hair blowing in her eyes. She looks over at him and the corners of her lips twist into a smile. “My PR team is terrible. I think you’d be much better.”

Jinyoung sips at his wine, noncommital, but already knowing he’ll accept. He needs to be back here. Suzy is offering him a chance to put on a different kind of performance, but it won’t be that different. He can still bring a crowd to its feet.

Jaebum stands on his other side, and stretches out his arm. “To freedom,” he says. “Let’s promise to never let anyone else be in charge of us, except us.”

He clinks his glass against Jinyoung’s and Suzy’s, and they all drink. A warm breeze brushes against Jinyoung’s skin. He looks at Jaebum and at Suzy and he doesn’t know whether it’s the wine or something else that makes him feel so warm, so at peace. But after all these years, as trainees and idols and whatever else—they’ve finally won.

Suzy takes his empty hand in hers, lacing their fingers together. Jinyoung sets down his wine glass and, with a smirk, reaches for Jaebum’s empty hand. They stay like that, for a while, the three of them linked together.

Happily ever after.


End file.
